Commentary/Caplan & Waters: Working memory and sentence comprehension
memory problems should at least be extended or discussed in a
different context. In particular, the question arises of whether sentence comprehension deficits in aphasic or central nervous system
(CNS) dysfunction patients are solely a consequence of a specific
working memory resource deficit and/or a computational deficit.
In other words, can there be an independent resource deficit without some interference from a computational deficit at the “postinterpretive” processing level? We will present data from an aphasic patient with verbal working memory deficits to broaden this
discussion.
Patient H. G., a 45-year-old male, suffered an ischemic stroke
in 1996. T2-weighted images in the axial plane taken about half a
year after the stroke revealed an extended lesion in the left temporoparietal region and a small lesion in the left posterior frontal
area. The temporoparietal lesion encloses (1) the left Heschl
gyrus, (2) the posterior part of the superior temporal gyrus, (3) the
supramarginal gyrus, and (4) the occipital gyri. The frontal lesion
involves the middle portion of the praecentral gyrus and the posterior part of the frontal gyrus (F2p). The inferior frontal gyrus
(F3) is spared. The functional deficit due to the frontal lesion
could be twofold: (1) an articulatory deficit due to the lesion in the
praecentral gyrus or (2) a verbal working memory deficit due to
the lesion in the posterior F2 area. The lesioned supramarginal
gyrus in the temporoparietal region should crucially affect the
phonological short-term memory (STM; see Warrington 1975),
with intact rehearsal processes (see unaffected F3 region). In
terms of the functional–neuroanatomical correlates, H. G. should
show the classical picture of an aphasic patient with an STM
deficit and potentially a syntactic processing deficit during sentence comprehension.
In a first step, we tested H. G. for deficits in the articulatory rehearsal and phonological storage system. Results indicate no STM
deficit in H. G. Tests for verbal working memory capacities such
as verbal word span (span: 2– 3) and an adapted aphasic reading
span task (span: 1) as well as digit spans (forward and backward),
however, indicate a severe verbal working memory deficit in H. G.
Next, H. G. was tested with several sentence-comprehension paradigms engaging syntactic complexities (word category violations,
subject–object relative clauses, subordinate clause violations).
Furthermore, a combination of syntactic complexity with increasing propositional content was applied. We used both sentence
picture-matching tasks and auditory and visual comprehension
tasks in the two test batteries. Results indicate that H. G. did not
show a significant deficit in sentence comprehension at the “interpretive” or “post-interpretive” level of processing. Thus, if
working memory impairments exclusively influence “post-interpretive” processing, as proposed by C&W (sects. 3.3 and 3.4), H.
G.’s data provide evidence against this hypothesis. Most strikingly,
he did not show any effect of increasing propositional content.
One example of this effect is that he scored 100% on a German
version of the Token Test (DeRenzi & Vignolo 1962; Martin & Feher 1992) and in a judgment task with increasing propositional
content.
To ensure that the “untimed” accuracy measures of sentence
comprehension were not due to a ceiling effect, we proceeded to
test H. G. in a combined syntactic and semantic judgment paradigm utilizing event-related potentials (ERPs). We assumed that
if the verbal working memory deficit of H. G. has any effect on
sentence comprehension it should be visible in the on-line measurements of ERP components specific to syntactic and semantic
processes (see also Friederici et al., in press). Even though this
judgment paradigm did not use the most complex syntactic structures nor a dual-task manipulation with additional load, H. G. displayed an interesting picture. Whereas the performance data were
in the normal range, H. G. showed that on-line computation of
syntactic structure and semantic integration was influenced by the
input parameters. The evaluation of syntactic violations (word category errors) and semantic violations (selectional restriction errors) and correct sentences in connected speech did not elicit any
of the expected ERP components in H. G. A similar picture
104
BEHAVIORAL AND BRAIN SCIENCES (1999) 22:1
emerged in the visual modality with a fast presentation rate (SOA:
500 msec). In a long SOA (1100 msec) visual manipulation, the
N400 (onset: 350 msec) was elicited to semantic violations and a
delayed P600 (onset: 1,000 msec) was elicited to syntactic violations. These results, although by no means exhaustive in the discussion of resource-capacity models, give evidence that reduced
verbal working memory capacities might go hand in hand with a
temporal deficit.
In-line measures of syntactic processing
using event-related brain potentials
Marta Kutas and Jonathan W. King
Department of Cognitive Science, University of California, San Diego, La
Jolla, CA 92093-0515. kutas@cogsci.ucsd.edu king@cogsci.ucsd.edu
Abstract: Scalp-recorded event-related potential (ERP) measures of
reading and listening have been proved more sensitive to the time course
of syntactic processing than the chronometric and behavioral data described by Caplan & Waters. ERP studies using sentences containing relative clauses indicate that there are individual differences in syntactic processing that appear at the earliest theoretically relevant time points and
are attributable to working memory operations.
Leaving aside a discussion of Caplan & Water’s (C&W’s) specific
proposal that there are two distinct verbal working memory systems, we note that C&W base much of their argument on
chronometric and behavioral data from the processing of sentences containing subject-relative (SR) and object-relative (OR)
clauses. The focus on the contrast between SR and OR clauses is
clear; arguments concerning limitations in working memory capacity permeate the experimental literature on this topic. The decision to focus on reaction time measures, however, is less clear to
us. Although a host of measures show consistent chronometric differences between the two sentences, these effects are generally
observed substantially after the point in the sentence where they
would be expected owing to a difference in working memory storage demands per se. In the following examples,
OR: The reporter who the senator harshly attacked admitted the error.
SR: The reporter who harshly attacked the senator admitted the error.
the noun phrase “the senator” in the OR sentence marks the beginning of the differential working memory load between the two
sentence types. However, RT differences are not seen until the
end of the relative clause or even later, on the main clause verb.
Thus, one might question the sensitivity of the chronometric measures on which C&W base their arguments, at least if monotonic
increases in memory load lead to monotonic increases in processing time, as many assume.
There is, however, one measure of brain processing that shows
differential activity for OR versus SR sentences starting precisely
where one would expect from the usual working memory arguments, namely, event-related potentials (ERPs). While C&W
miscite who found out what and when, they do note that the processing of OR sentences is associated with a greater negativity
than the processing of SR sentences. This electrophysiological
pattern has been observed repeatedly during word-by-word reading in English (King & Kutas 1995) and German (Mecklinger et
al. 1995; Münte et al. 1997) as well as in connected speech (Müller
et al. 1997). This ERP difference between subject and object relatives is large and is more pronounced over anterior electrode
sites; with visual materials, it is also left-lateralized. (Indeed, it is
this topographic characteristic of the data that C&W highlighted
when referring to ERP results in their section on the anatomical
locus of verbal working memory processes.) But, to emphasize the
point, the electrophysiological data show a much earlier point of
divergence. Moreover, King and Kutas (1995) found that the
Commentary/Caplan & Waters: Working memory and sentence comprehension
ERPs to the main-clause verb in both SR and OR sentences
showed a greater left anterior negativity than the second verb in
sentences that did not contain relative clauses. Although tempted,
we will refrain from arguing from this pattern of effects that the
insensitivity of the behavioral reaction time data suggests they are
more likely to reflect “post-integrative” effects.
C&W also claim that there is no (behavioral) evidence of an interaction between sentence complexity and working memory capacity (WMC), and, because there is no evidence that sentence
complexity has larger effects on low-WMC subjects, C&W conclude that RT data from the SR–OR contrast support their proposal for a verbal working memory subsystem specialized for syntactic analysis. Setting aside their interpretation of the behavioral
data, we would like to point out that the ERP studies cited above
also include notable demonstrations of individual differences in
syntactic processing. In both written and spoken English, good
comprehenders show large ERP differences between SR and OR
sentence types, whereas poorer comprehenders show almost none
(see, e.g., King & Kutas 1995; Müller et al. 1997). In good comprehenders, subject relatives elicit a frontal positivity, whereas object relatives show more negative deflections from this pattern. In
poor comprehenders, the responses elicited by both the SR and
the OR sentences are almost identical to each other and also identical to the response elicited by OR sentences in good comprehenders. It is likely that these good comprehenders would score
higher on many (possibly language specific) WMC measures than
would poor comprehenders. More sensitive measures thus do
show the kind of individual differences C&W failed to find. Additionally, however, we find that good and poor comprehenders
show ERP differences even on simple transitive sentences (Kutas
& King 1996), data that are not predicted by any of the existing capacity theories, because these sentence types require far less capacity to process.
Whatever the ultimate subdivisions of verbal working memory
turn out to be, we doubt that psycholinguists can afford to ignore
the temporal information and processing perspective provided by
sentence-level ERP measures. At present, although interesting
and provocative, the C&W proposal awaits an exact empirical test.
Accounting for the fine structure of syntactic
working memory: Similarity-based
interference as a unifying principle
Richard L. Lewis
Department of Computer and Information Science and Center for Cognitive
Science, The Ohio State University, Columbus, OH 43210.
rick@cis.ohio-state.edu
www.cis.ohio-state.edu/~rick
Abstract: A promising approach to more refined models consistent with
the Caplan & Waters hypothesis is based on similarity-based interference,
a general principle that applies across working memory domains. This may
explain both the fine details of syntactic working memory phenomena and
the gross fractionation for which Caplan & Waters have found evidence.
Detailed models of syntactic processing that embody similarity-based interference fare well cross-linguistically.
Caplan & Waters (C&W) present a compelling case for specialization within verbal working memory. They conclude their target article by looking ahead to additional specification of the hypothesis
based on better developed models of working memory. In this
commentary I describe some work that takes up the challenge to
develop more refined working memory models. I will first discuss
briefly some of the phenomena that must be accounted for by a
more detailed theory. I will then argue two theoretical points:
first, even though working memory may be quite specialized, there
are general principles that apply across all kinds of working memory. Second, one of those general principles, similarity-based interference, may explain both the fine details of syntactic working
memory phenomena and the gross fractionation and specialization
for which C&W have found evidence (Lewis 1993; 1996b; 1998).
C&W start their discussion of memory demands in sentence
comprehension with the notoriously difficult English double
center-embedded relative clause (their sentence [1]) and go on to
cite a few of the computational models and linguistic metrics that
have been developed to account for the problem with such embeddings. What they did not mention is how surprisingly difficult
it has been to produce models and metrics that are empirically adequate. Though it is true that there is a “remarkable degree of similarity in the measurements” that some of the models produce
(sect. 1), the vast majority of these measurements do not fare well
when considered against a broad range of embeddings cross-linguistically. Furthermore, there has been little independent psychological motivation for the proposed memory structures (e.g.,
stacks, lookahead buffers) and their associated limitations (see
Lewis 1996 for a review).
As an example of the kind of empirical hurdle faced by any theory of syntactic working memory, consider a fact established by
Cowper (1976) and Gibson (1991) in their seminal work: a metric
based on the amount of center-embedding does not account for
many difficulty contrasts in English and other languages. Consider
sentences (1a) and (1b):
1a. That the food that John ordered tasted good pleased him (Cowper
1976; Gibson 1991).
1b. Der Bauer, der die Kuh, die schlechte Milch gab schlachtete ist
krank.
the farmer who the cow which bad milk gave killed is sick.
“The farmer who killed the cow which gave bad milk is sick” (Hawkins
1994).
Though both constructions involve double center-embedding of
sentential structures (and sentence [1b] even involves centerembedding of relative clauses), neither causes the comprehension
difficulty associated with the classic example cited in the target article.
Although increasing center-embedding certainly increases difficulty, another important observation is that increasing the similarity of the embedded constituents increases difficulty, and making constituents more distinct or dissimilar in some way helps
processing. This generalization is an old one; it goes back to Miller
and Chomsky’s (1963) original self-embedding metric and has
been noted several times since (e.g., Bever 1970; Kuno 1974).
Why is this observation significant? Similarity-based interference is a principle that holds true of working memory in general. Starting with the early work of Baddeley (1966) and Conrad
(1963), which identified a special system relying on phonological
codes and covert rehearsal, evidence has accumulated for a wide
range of distinct working memory types subject to selective, typespecific interference. The verbal versus visual-spatial distinction is
the best known (Baddeley & Hitch 1974; Logie et al. 1990), but
there is also evidence for distinct codes for kinesthetic memory
(Williams et al. 1969), odor (Walker & John 1984), and sign language (Poizner et al. 1981), to name a few. The robust result across
domains is that, when to-be-remembered items are followed by
stimuli that are similar along some dimensions, the original items
are more quickly forgotten (Shulman 1970; Waugh & Norman
1965).
Crucially, similarity-based interference operates within major
categories as well. The most familiar within-category effect is the
phonological similarity effect. Ordered recall of phonologically
similar lists of words, consonants, or nonsense trigrams is worse
than with dissimilar lists (Baddeley 1966; Conrad 1963; Wickelgren 1965). Related effects show up in immediate memory for
American Sign Language (Poizner et al. 1981) and visual orientation (Magnussen et al. 1991).
Building on these results, and the work cited earlier by Gibson
(1991), Cowper (1976), and others, I have hypothesized that
similarity-based interference as a general principle applies to syntactic working memory as well. Lewis (1993; 1996b) described a
BEHAVIORAL AND BRAIN SCIENCES (1999) 22:1
105
References/Caplan & Waters: Working memory and sentence comprehension
line psycholinguistic processing and one or more resource
pools that may be used for other verbally-mediated tasks.
How fine a fractionation of resource systems will be needed
to account for capacity limitations in language processing
and other verbally mediated cognitive functions is not
known at this point (Waters & Caplan 1996c).
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